The Untold Tale

Kobo ebook | December 8, 2015

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Forsyth Turn is not a hero. Lordling of Turn Hall and Lysse Chipping, yes. Spymaster for the king, certainly. But hero? That’s his older brother’s job, and Kintyre Turn is nothing if not legendary. However, when a raid on the kingdom’s worst criminal results in the rescue of a bafflingly blunt woman, oddly named and even more oddly mannered, Forsyth finds his quaint, sedentary life is turned on its head. Dragged reluctantly into a quest he never expected, and fighting villains that even his brother has never managed to best, Forsyth is forced to confront his own self-shame and the demons that come with always being second-best. And, more than that, when he finally realizes where Lucy came from and why she’s here, he’ll be forced to question not only his place in the world, but the very meaning of his own existence. Smartly crafted, The Untold Tale gives agency to the unlikeliest of heroes: the silenced, the marginalized, and the overlooked. It asks what it really means to be a fan when the worlds you love don't resemble the world you live in, celebrates the power of the written word, challenges tropes, and shows us what happens when someone stands up and refuses to remain a secondary character in their own life.

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Reviews

Rated 5 out of
5 by
Mike_Perschon from
The Most Important Work of Fantasy in 2015Let me start by saying, for those who are of the "TLDR" persuasion, that I think that J.M. Frey's The Untold Tale is the most important work of fantasy written in 2015. It may be the most important work of fantasy written this decade, but I'll have to get back to you on that in 2020.
I'd also heard this was a work of metafiction, but given what Frey had done with Twilight in Dark Side of the Glass, I was curious to see what she'd do with a secondary world of wizards and warriors. It turned out to be very intriguing: The Untold Tale begins with an unlikely hero, Forsyth Turn, a stuttering, intellectual lordling who moonlights as a fantasy Zorro/Batman in the employ of the King. He's not Conan or Aragorn or even Elric. He's a nice guy. His servants and subjects really like him. But he lives in the shadow of his awesome brother, who is more cock-sure than Conan and more arrogant than Aragorn (and I mean Tolkien's Aragorn, who's pretty arrogant when compared with Viggo's Aragorn) without even a smattering of Elric. He's a young version of Zemeckis' Beowulf. Add the mystery of a woman who's been exquisitely tortured turning up on Turn's doorstep, and our story is off to an engaging start.
I expected metafictional commentary on fantasy, and I got it. In addition to Forsyth Turn being an unlikely fantasy hero (though only insofar that he's not a hobbit - Tolkien's hobbits and Forsyth Turn have a few things in common in their unlikeliness), Pip the mystery woman is not your typical fantasy heroine. She does not swoon - she swears (like the proverbial sailor). She is not powerless, she is empowered. I could go on, but you likely get it. She is the heir-apparent to Princess Leia, Ripley, Sarah Connor, Buffy, et al. Part of my brain said "hey, neither of these things is really all that original, but I appreciate reiteration, since women are still fighting for positive representation in geek narratives. It's still meta, even if it isn't so fresh (for those who read no further, this is part of Frey's game - she knows none of this particularly fresh. This was all just preamble).
Then there was the quest itself: instead of just going the way of Voltaire’s Candide (or even Tolkien’s hobbits) stumbling into situations, Pip makes a plan based upon standard fantasy narratives (I would explain this further, but there are both spoilers and a great joke in the name of this plan which are best experienced first-hand). Imagine fantasy roleplaying characters who not only how to achieve their quest with the least amount of violence and suspense, but WANT to achieve their quest in that safe and sensible fashion, because it leaves more time for sex.
Lots of sex. And with that salacious teaser, I want to make clear who should and should not read this book.
First, who should not read this book:
People who don't like sex. If you don’t like explicit sex scenes, you will not like this book. You might say, “Well I’ll just skip those bits,” but unlike so many other works of fantasy, this book needs its sex scenes.
People who don’t like swearing. Double up your offended sensibilities if you think women shouldn’t cuss.
People who think that modern Sword and Sorcery should still read like Robert E. Howard's "Vale of Lost Women," (to be clear, I love Howard - but "Vale" is sexist and racist and is, by consensus, one of the man's worst stories). Not only will you hate this book, but you’re the reason this book was written.
People who think that rape is a smart motivation for a female character. Or torture. Or unbridled desire for the male lead as governing purpose. If degradation of women seems like a traditional fantasy trope to you, and you think that’s the way it should be, you’re going to hate this book.
People who want their fantasy to have a lot of action and creatures and violence. If you’re looking for a dungeon crawl to read, go somewhere else. You will not enjoy the easy pace Frey takes in the first half. This is a book where the heroes ponder, not pound their way out of a crisis.
People who are homophobic. Not only is there a lot of sex, there are many positive references to progressive sexuality. Westboro Baptist will picket this book the second it gets famous.
People who should read The Untold Tale:
People who like sex. Now, you might say, “isn’t it enough that I can endure or just appreciate the sex scenes?” Yeah, it’s enough. But if you’re like me, and they get you a little hot, then the moment when Frey pulls the rug out from under you will have way more impact. I haven’t felt that manipulated since my Salsa dance teacher trotted me around the room to give me a sense of the steps. And in a way, that’s what Frey is doing also.
People who want to see smarter writing about women, people of colour, and LGBTQ characters: who are tired of writers mistaking the nostalgic impulse of fantasy for reifying outdated ways of treating the Other, whomever the Other may be.
People who read for more than “what happens next.” People who enjoy a turn of phrase as much as turning a page.
By now, you should know whether or not you want to read this book, and I can move on to spoilers. Go away and read it, then come back and read my analysis of the back half of the book.
MAJOR SPOILERS, RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW.
Halfway through the book, after that passionate sex scene, after Pip and Forsyth are apparently deeply in love, we discover that she’s been under the control of the villain since page one. A sharp reader might see this coming, but even if they did, they might miss the full implications of that plot device. You see, it means more than just “the villain can see through Pip’s eyes.” It means that Pip might not really love Forsyth. And it means, horror of horrors, that every sex scene you’ve enjoyed thus far was effectively a moment of rape. Obviously, Forsyth had no idea what he was doing, but the evil mastermind behind Pip’s eyes did. And here’s where the really serious metacommentary engages. Everything to this point is, to a degree, prelude. And so The Untold Tale not only requires brave readers, but patient ones as well.
Now think about Pip’s rape from a meta-perspective. A force controlling her has made her appear to love and want to unreservedly have sex with Forsyth. And while I saw that there was a force controlling her, it didn’t occur to me that this extended to the sex scenes. When I did, it was like being slapped. I’ve enjoyed Conan since I was a kid. And I’ll readily admit, I enjoyed it (and still do) for those moments when the female lead throws herself at Conan’s feet. It’s a male power fantasy. Now, if that was but one of many sexual fantasies finding space in fantasy novels, it wouldn’t be an issue. But it’s the primary one. It’s the one that gets the most play and results in the greatest successes. Look at the marketing for most fantasy games online – some buxom elf or warrior woman. Frey is responding to this overused, terribly tired trope, and body slamming it.
Like many critics who appear to have never finished the book, I was emotionally charged enough to want to stop reading. I was angry. Angry at Frey for making me face that male power fantasy and interrogate it. Angry at Frey for taking what I took for love between Pip and Forsyth (a character I identified with very closely) and telling me it hadn’t happened. Angry on Pip’s behalf, because what was done to her was wrong. And that’s when I realized this was the most important work of fantasy in 2015. Suddenly, I didn’t just want Pip not to be raped. I wanted a lot of fictional women who had been thrown at the hero’s feet by their controlling mastermind to be vindicated.
The Untold Tale does for fantasy what Redshirts did for SF. It addresses a particular area that needs to see change. And before you say that writers like Frey are just placing feminist shackles on everything, make sure you read the rest of The Untold Tale. Because Frey doesn’t just slap the guys with the male power fantasy. She slaps the self-righteous voices that ignore a partner’s “right to desire.” In the case of The Untold Tale, that partner is male, because it is Forsyth who calls Pip out on this. And this is appropriate, because it’s likely mostly men who will feel the full brunt of Frey’s chastisement. The metacommentary had felt very one-sided to that point. And Frey doesn’t stop with that. She takes a few more turns with her meta-conversation before the end of the book, concluding in a fashion which is exceedingly satisfying.
In his essay “On Fairy Stories,” Tolkien talks about the eucatastrophe, which is effectively the consolation that emerges from the darkness near the end of good fantasy. Something terrible must happen before the hero can win out, or the stakes aren’t high enough: if the stakes are high enough, the happy ending, as Tolkien put it, “ pierces you with a joy that brings tears.” But this cannot come without Frodo at the edge of the Cracks of Doom, overcome by the Ring. We as the reader must despair, or the victory will not feel worth having. Frey takes her reader on a very dark journey – one that is primarily internal and emotional in terms of darkness. Forsyth and Pip perch at the edge of a volcano, but it is a relational one, not physical.
And this is the best reason to consider reading The Untold Tale, and why it's one of the most important works of fantasy from 2015. Because it isn’t just smart metacommentary--a book with nothing but a social agenda usually makes for crap reading, because it isn't a story, it's a sermon. Beyond what it has to say about the genre of fantasy, The Untold Tale is a wonderful fantasy story set in a beautiful secondary world: one I look forward to journeying through again.